Summary

This module provides authentication front-ends such as
mod_auth_basic to authenticate users similar
to anonymous-ftp sites, i.e. have a 'magic' user id
'anonymous' and the email address as a password. These email
addresses can be logged.

Combined with other (database) access control methods, this
allows for effective user tracking and customization according
to a user profile while still keeping the site open for
'unregistered' users. One advantage of using Auth-based user
tracking is that, unlike magic-cookies and funny URL
pre/postfixes, it is completely browser independent and it
allows users to share URLs.

A list of one or more 'magic' userIDs which are allowed
access without password verification. The userIDs are space
separated. It is possible to use the ' and " quotes to allow a
space in a userID as well as the \ escape character.

Please note that the comparison is
case-IN-sensitive.
It's strongly recommended that the magic username
'anonymous' is always one of the allowed
userIDs.

Example:

Anonymous anonymous "Not Registered" "I don't know"

This would allow the user to enter without password
verification by using the userIDs "anonymous",
"AnonyMous", "Not Registered" and "I Don't Know".

As of Apache 2.1 it is possible to specify the userID as
"*". That allows any supplied userID to be
accepted.

When set On, users can leave the userID (and
perhaps the password field) empty. This can be very convenient for
MS-Explorer users who can just hit return or click directly on the
OK button; which seems a natural reaction.

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